They are stories of redemption and absolution. They satisfy age-old hopes that justice will be done and that the good guy will get the girl and eventually save the world. In the immediate wake of 9/11, Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan hastily declared an end to The Celebrity Culture. His polemical wager centred on the dawn of a new age of serious thinking. It cut directly against the grain of tabloid thinking and effectively signed his own newspaper death-knell, as The Mirror’s sales fell directly into freefall. The goat with symbols of all the ills of the community and then they would banish it.

Twinning of Sid with Elvis doesn’t look quite so bizarre. Both were self-made creations from problematic back-grounds who were, at various points, a kind of living litmus test for problems in the wider culture. Both were sent mad by fame and/or notoriety, and both destroyed themselves … Read More